With the average cost of medical school education and living expenses reaching $247,224 for students in-state to $391,792 for students out-of-state, 80-85 percent of students require financial assistance. Often this heavy debt impacts a student’s choice of medical schools as well as their medical specialty based on its income potential to repay loans. As Florida Atlantic University’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicinecontinues to seek, recruit and secure the “best and brightest”, this year’s 8th Annual White Coats-4-Care (WC4C) Reception advances from its traditional “new class” community welcome to becoming the college’s principal scholarship fundraiser.

Held on Wednesday, August 8th from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the Delray Acura Club in the
FAU Stadium, 777 Glades Road, Boca Raton, this year’s WC4C donor reception will have an emphasis on scholarship funding as the event continues to celebrate the first and only medical school in Palm Beach County and the strides of its prior seven classes, embrace the incoming class of Florida’s future physicians. To propel this heightened mission, new contribution options have been added: a College of Medicine Lobby Tribute sponsorship and a “White Coats Society” named scholarship opportunities.

Co-chaired by Kaye Communications (KCOM-PR) principals Bonnie and Jon Kaye and supported with a diverse planning committee of community and medical school leaders, this year’s reception admission is invitation-only for those who pledge or donate a minimum per-person gift of $200 to dedicate a white coat for a new medical student and/or a choice of other contribution options:

“We are pleased to see that through the years both the Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine and its scholarship funds are rising and that White Coats-4-Care has evolved to support the students where it is most needed. In addition to the cost of tuition, there are other expenses including cost of books, living, food and equipment,” noted Kaye Communications Founder & Chief Strategist Bonnie Kaye who along with partner and husband Jon Kaye created and presented the WC4C reception for eight consecutive years raising more than $300,000.

Pairing Kaye Communications — an award-winning Seriously Strategic℠ full-service integrated public relations and marketing firm with FAU’s medical school continues to be a natural fit. The event was conceived during FAU medical school’s inaugural year while KCOM-PR Chief Operating Officer Jon Kaye served as a founding member of the Advisory Board for the Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine and KCOM President Bonnie Kaye served at the same time on the board of the FAU Foundation.

“Returning to the venue for the second time on FAU’s campus allows us to increase attendance at the annual summer tradition as community leaders in business, healthcare, education and government join together to celebrate one of Boca Raton’s most treasured health and wellness assets and the students,” added WC4C Co-chair Jon Kaye. “To accelerate ‘fan and ‘fund’ raising, we are pleased to once again have attracted a dedicated blended committee of medical school and community leaders.”

FAU’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine officially welcomes its eighth incoming class of 64 students on Friday, August 10, 2018 at the College’s coveted White Coat Ceremony. During this event, each new medical student will receive a white coat that represents integrity, compassion and trust and symbolizes their shared commitment to serve patients and honor an oath they will collectively develop before the ceremony that will serve as their own code of conduct throughout medical school and as physicians. A ‘welcome to the community’ note from each WC4C donor will be inserted into a student’s coat pocket.

“For more than a century, the white coat has served as the pre-eminent symbol of physicians, and our White Coats-4-Care event is a wonderful way to memorialize this tradition while welcoming our newest medical students to the Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine and to this community,” said Phillip Boiselle, M.D., dean of FAU’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine. “We sincerely thank Bonnie and Jon Kaye, the planning committee, our advisory board members, our hospital and health care partners, and the entire community for their continued support of our medical school and our mission to educate Florida’s future physicians.”

FAU’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine is one of approximately 151 accredited medical schools in the U.S. The college was launched in 2010, when the Florida Board of Governors made a landmark decision authorizing FAU to award the M.D. degree. After receiving approval from the Florida legislature and the governor, it became the 134th allopathic medical school in North America.

With more than 70 full and part-time faculty and more than 1,300 affiliate faculty, the college matriculates 64 medical students each year and has been nationally recognized for its innovative curriculum. To further FAU’s commitment to increase much needed medical residency positions in Palm Beach County and to ensure that the region will continue to have an adequate and well-trained physician workforce, the FAU Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine Consortium for Graduate Medical Education (GME) was formed in fall 2011 with five leading hospitals in Palm Beach County. In June 2014, FAU’s College of Medicine welcomed its inaugural class of 36 residents in its first University-sponsored residency in internal medicine and graduated its first class of internal medicine residents in 2017.

For more information about the 2018 “White Coats-4-Care”, pledge a gift to attend the event or make a contribution, contact Yael Matan at the FAU Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine, at ymatan@health.fau.edu or 561.297.4452. Online registration is also available at https://fauf.fau.edu/WhiteCoats.